In a move that may not be completely surprising to anyone, Lowe’s has announced that it’s shutting down its own Iris smarthome platform.
The company announced the move in its third-quarter earnings statement last week, citing “strategic reassessment of the business” as the reason, as well as focusing more “on its core home improvement business and improve profitability.”
According to the IoT Podcast (at 5:13), however, Lowe’s says that it’s still business as usual and there are no changes to the Iris platform yet “as they search for a buyer.” So all of your Iris products will still work normally, but that may change depending on who Lowe’s sells Iris to.
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Lowe’s launched Iris back in 2012 as a way for the company to sell its own smarthome products to the public. The product line offered a handful of various ZigBee and Z-Wave devices and sensors, as well as a proprietary Iris hub, but the devices also worked with other smarthome hubs, like Wink and SmartThings. Iris also integrated with other product lines like Philips Hue and Nest.
Lowe’s will continue to sell smarthome products from other brands, including devices from GE, Google, Nest, Amazon, and more, but the company’s own Iris platform won’t share that same honor in the near future.
